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A .NET Core daemon application calling a custom Web API with its own identity using a CIAM tenant

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Overview

This sample demonstrates a .NET Core daemon app calling a .NET Core Web API that is secured using Azure AD for Customers.

Scenario

  1. The client .NET Core daemon app obtains a JWT Access Token from Azure AD for Customers.
  2. The access token is used as a bearer token to authorize the user to call the .NET Core Web API protected by Azure AD for Customers.
  3. The service uses the Microsoft.Identity.Web to protect the Web api, check permissions and validate tokens.

Scenario Image

Prerequisites

Setup the sample

Step 1: Clone or download this repository

From your shell or command line:

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/ms-identity-ciam-dotnet-tutorial.git

or download and extract the repository .zip file.

⚠️ To avoid path length limitations on Windows, we recommend cloning into a directory near the root of your drive.

Step 2: Navigate to project folder

cd 2-Authorization\3-call-own-api-dotnet-core-daemon\ToDoListClient

Step 3: Register the sample application(s) in your tenant

There are two projects in this sample. Each needs to be separately registered in your Azure AD tenant. To register these projects, you can:

  • follow the steps below for manually register your apps
  • or use PowerShell scripts that:
    • automatically creates the Azure AD applications and related objects (passwords, permissions, dependencies) for you.
    • modify the projects' configuration files.
Expand this section if you want to use this automation:

⚠️ If you have never used Microsoft Graph PowerShell before, we recommend you go through the App Creation Scripts Guide once to ensure that your environment is prepared correctly for this step.

  1. Ensure that you have PowerShell 7 or later which can be installed at [this link](this link).

  2. Run the script to create your Azure AD application and configure the code of the sample application accordingly.

  3. For interactive process -in PowerShell, run:

    cd .\AppCreationScripts\
.\Configure.ps1 -TenantId "[Optional] - your tenant id" -AzureEnvironmentName "[Optional] - Azure environment, defaults to 'Global'"

Other ways of running the scripts are described in App Creation Scripts guide. The scripts also provide a guide to automated application registration, configuration and removal which can help in your CI/CD scenarios.

ℹ️ This sample can make use of client certificates. You can use AppCreationScripts to register an Azure AD application with certificates. See: How to use certificates instead of client secrets

Choose the Azure AD for Customers tenant where you want to create your applications

To manually register the apps, as a first step you'll need to:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
  2. If your account is present in more than one Azure AD for Customers tenant, select your profile at the top right corner in the menu on top of the page, and then switch directory to change your portal session to the desired Azure AD for Customers tenant.

Register the service app (ciam-dotnet-api)

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal and select the Azure AD for Customers service.
  2. Select the App Registrations blade on the left, then select New registration.
  3. In the Register an application page that appears, enter your application's registration information:
    1. In the Name section, enter a meaningful application name that will be displayed to users of the app, for example ciam-dotnet-api.
    2. Under Supported account types, select Accounts in this organizational directory only
    3. Select Register to create the application.
  4. In the Overview blade, find and note the Application (client) ID. You use this value in your app's configuration file(s) later in your code.
  5. In the app's registration screen, select the Expose an API blade to the left to open the page where you can publish the permission as an API for which client applications can obtain access tokens for. The first thing that we need to do is to declare the unique resource URI that the clients will be using to obtain access tokens for this API. To declare an resource URI(Application ID URI), follow the following steps:
    1. Select Set next to the Application ID URI to generate a URI that is unique for this app.
    2. For this sample, accept the proposed Application ID URI (api://{clientId}) by selecting Save.

      ℹ️ Read more about Application ID URI at Validation differences by supported account types (signInAudience).

Publish Delegated Permissions
  1. All APIs must publish a minimum of one scope, also called Delegated Permission, for the client apps to obtain an access token for a user successfully. To publish a scope, follow these steps:
  2. Select Add a scope button open the Add a scope screen and Enter the values as indicated below:
    1. For Scope name, use ToDoList.Read.
    2. For Admin consent display name type in Read users ToDo list using the 'ciam-dotnet-api'.
    3. For Admin consent description type in Allow the app to read the user's ToDo list using the 'ciam-dotnet-api'.
    4. Keep State as Enabled.
    5. Select the Add scope button on the bottom to save this scope.
    6. Repeat the steps above for another scope named ToDoList.ReadWrite
  3. Select the Manifest blade on the left.
    1. Set accessTokenAcceptedVersion property to 2.
    2. Select on Save.

ℹ️ Follow the principle of least privilege when publishing permissions for a web API.

Publish Application Permissions
  1. All APIs should publish a minimum of one App role for applications, also called Application Permission, for the client apps to obtain an access token as themselves, i.e. when they are not signing-in a user. Application permissions are the type of permissions that APIs should publish when they want to enable client applications to successfully authenticate as themselves and not need to sign-in users. To publish an application permission, follow these steps:
  2. Still on the same app registration, select the App roles blade to the left.
  3. Select Create app role:
    1. For Display name, enter a suitable name for your application permission, for instance ToDoList.Read.All.
    2. For Allowed member types, choose Application to ensure other applications can be granted this permission.
    3. For Value, enter ToDoList.Read.All.
    4. For Description, enter Allow the app to read every user's ToDo list using the 'ciam-dotnet-api'.
    5. Select Apply to save your changes.
    6. Repeat the steps above for another app permission named ToDoList.ReadWrite.All
Configure Optional Claims
  1. Still on the same app registration, select the Token configuration blade to the left.
  2. Select Add optional claim:
    1. Select optional claim type, then choose Access.
    2. Select the optional claim idtyp.

    Indicates token type. This claim is the most accurate way for an API to determine if a token is an app token or an app+user token. This is not issued in tokens issued to users.

    1. Select Add to save your changes.
Configure the service app (ciam-dotnet-api) to use your app registration

Open the project in your IDE (like Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code) to configure the code.

In the steps below, "ClientID" is the same as "Application ID" or "AppId".

  1. Open the ToDoListAPI\appsettings.json file.
  2. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Application_Id_Here and replace the existing value with the application ID (clientId) of ciam-dotnet-api app copied from the Azure portal.
  3. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Tenant_Id_Here and replace the existing value with your Azure AD tenant/directory ID.
  4. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Tenant_Subdomain_Here and replace it with the Directory (tenant) subdomain. For instance, if your tenant primary domain is contoso.onmicrosoft.com, use contoso.

Register the client app (ciam-dotnet-daemon)

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal and select the Azure AD for Customers service.
  2. Select the App Registrations blade on the left, then select New registration.
  3. In the Register an application page that appears, enter your application's registration information:
    1. In the Name section, enter a meaningful application name that will be displayed to users of the app, for example ciam-dotnet-daemon.
    2. Under Supported account types, select Accounts in this organizational directory only
    3. Select Register to create the application.
  4. In the Overview blade, find and note the Application (client) ID. You use this value in your app's configuration file(s) later in your code.
  5. In the app's registration screen, select the Certificates & secrets blade in the left to open the page where you can generate secrets and upload certificates.
  6. In the Client secrets section, select New client secret:
    1. Type a key description (for instance app secret).
    2. Select one of the available key durations (6 months, 12 months or Custom) as per your security posture.
    3. The generated key value will be displayed when you select the Add button. Copy and save the generated value for use in later steps.
    4. You'll need this key later in your code's configuration files. This key value will not be displayed again, and is not retrievable by any other means, so make sure to note it from the Azure portal before navigating to any other screen or blade.

    ⚠️ For enhanced security, consider using certificates instead of client secrets. See: How to use certificates instead of secrets.

  7. Since this app signs-in as itself using the OAuth 2.0 client credentials flow, we will now proceed to select application permissions, which is required by apps authenticating as themselves.
    1. In the app's registration screen, select the API permissions blade in the left to open the page where we add access to the APIs that your application needs:
    2. Select the Add a permission button and then:
    3. Ensure that the My APIs tab is selected.
    4. In the list of APIs, select the API ciam-dotnet-api.
      1. We will select “Application permissions”, which should be the type of permissions that apps should use when they are authenticating just as themselves and not signing-in users.
    5. In the Application permissions section, select the ToDoList.Read.All, ToDoList.ReadWrite.All in the list. Use the search box if necessary.
    6. Select the Add permissions button at the bottom.
  8. At this stage, the permissions are assigned correctly but since the client app does not allow users to interact, the users' themselves cannot consent to these permissions. To get around this problem, we'd let the tenant administrator consent on behalf of all users in the tenant. Select the Grant admin consent for {tenant} button, and then select Yes when you are asked if you want to grant consent for the requested permissions for all accounts in the tenant. You need to be a tenant admin to be able to carry out this operation.
Configure the client app (ciam-dotnet-daemon) to use your app registration

Open the project in your IDE (like Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code) to configure the code.

In the steps below, "ClientID" is the same as "Application ID" or "AppId".

  1. Open the ToDoListClient\appsettings.json file.
  2. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Application_Id_Here and replace the existing value with the application ID (clientId) of ciam-dotnet-daemon app copied from the Azure portal.
  3. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Tenant_Subdomain_Here and replace it with the Directory (tenant) subdomain. For instance, if your tenant primary domain is contoso.onmicrosoft.com, use contoso.
  4. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Client_Secret_Here and replace the existing value with the generated secret that you saved during the creation of ciam-dotnet-daemon copied from the Azure portal.
  5. Find the placeholder Enter_the_Web_Api_Application_Id_Here and replace the existing value with the application ID (clientId) of ciam-dotnet-api app copied from the Azure portal.

Step 4: Running the sample

From your shell or command line, execute the following commands:

    cd 2-Authorization\3-call-own-api-dotnet-core-daemon\ToDoListClient
    dotnet run

Then, open a separate command terminal and run:

    cd 2-Authorization\3-call-own-api-dotnet-core-daemon\ToDoListAPI
    dotnet run

Explore the sample

This is a very simple sample showing how to perform basic create, read, update and delete operations agains an API protected with MSAL and Azure AD.

If you configured the sample correctly, running the sample with dotnet run should produce the following output in your terminal:

Posting a to-do...
Retrieving to-do's from server...
To-do data:
ID: 1
User ID: aaaaaaaa-0000-1111-2222-bbbbbbbbbbbb
Message: Bake bread
Posting a second to-do...
Retrieving to-do's from server...
To-do data:
ID: 1
User ID: aaaaaaaa-0000-1111-2222-bbbbbbbbbbbb
Message: Bake bread
ID: 2
User ID: bbbbbbbb-1111-2222-3333-cccccccccccc
Message: Butter bread
Deleting a to-do...
Retrieving to-do's from server...
To-do data:
ID: 2
User ID: bbbbbbbb-1111-2222-3333-cccccccccccc
Message: Butter bread
Editing a to-do...
Retrieving to-do's from server...
To-do data:
ID: 2
User ID: bbbbbbbb-1111-2222-3333-cccccccccccc
Message: Eat bread
Deleting remaining to-do...
Retrieving to-do's from server...
There are no to-do's in server

ℹ️ Did the sample not work for you as expected? Then please reach out to us using the GitHub Issues page.

We'd love your feedback!

Were we successful in addressing your learning objective? Consider taking a moment to share your experience with us.

Troubleshooting

Expand for troubleshooting info

ASP.NET core applications create session cookies that represent the identity of the caller. Some Safari users using iOS 12 had issues which are described in ASP.NET Core #4467 and the Web kit bugs database Bug 188165 - iOS 12 Safari breaks ASP.NET Core 2.1 OIDC authentication.

If your web site needs to be accessed from users using iOS 12, you probably want to disable the SameSite protection, but also ensure that state changes are protected with CSRF anti-forgery mechanism. See the how to fix section of Microsoft Security Advisory: iOS12 breaks social, WSFed and OIDC logins #4647

To provide feedback on or suggest features for Azure Active Directory, visit User Voice page.

About the code

The client portion of this application is managed in the ToDoListClient\Program.cs file. Within the first few lines of the file you can see an API client created for you based on the configurations held within the few lines of the file.

const string ServiceName = "ToDoApi";

// Get the Token acquirer factory instance. By default it reads an appsettings.json
// file if it exists in the same folder as the app (make sure that the 
// "Copy to Output Directory" property of the appsettings.json file is "Copy if newer").
var tokenAcquirerFactory = TokenAcquirerFactory.GetDefaultInstance();

// Configure the application options to be read from the configuration
// and add the services you need (Graph, token cache)
tokenAcquirerFactory.Services.AddDownstreamApi(ServiceName,
    tokenAcquirerFactory.Configuration.GetSection("ToDoApi"));

// By default, you get an in-memory token cache.
// For more token cache serialization options, see https://aka.ms/msal-net-token-cache-serialization

// Resolve the dependency injection.
var serviceProvider = tokenAcquirerFactory.Build();


var toDoApiClient = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<IDownstreamApi>();

The toDoApiClient is already loaded with an in-memory cache for tokens and the configurations held within the ToDoListClient\appsettings.json file and the client credentials stored within that same file to immediately make calls to the ToDoListAPI.

The client can also make requests using the credentials out of the box for requests like GET, POST and DELETE. You can see examples of this throughout the code that can also deserialize JSON from request responses into C# objects with no further configuration.

For example:

var firstNewToDo = await toDoApiClient.PostForAppAsync<ToDo, ToDo>(
            ServiceName,
            new ToDo()
            {
                UserId = Guid.NewGuid(),
                Message = "Bake bread"
            });

Please bare in mind that the UserId in this sample is generated for the sake of demonstration. In actual scenarios you would want to use the actual Object ID of user's if you wanted a key to reference them.

For further reading see the IDownsIDownstreamApi documentaiton here.

How to deploy this sample to Azure

Expand the section

Deploying web API to Azure App Services

There is one web API in this sample. To deploy it to Azure App Services, you'll need to:

  • create an Azure App Service
  • publish the projects to the App Services

⚠️ Please make sure that you have not switched on the Automatic authentication provided by App Service. It interferes the authentication code used in this code example.

Publish your files (ciam-dotnet-api)

Publish using Visual Studio

Follow the link to Publish with Visual Studio.

Publish using Visual Studio Code
  1. Install the Visual Studio Code extension Azure App Service.
  2. Follow the link to Publish with Visual Studio Code

ℹ️ When calling the web API, your app may receive an error similar to the following:

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://some-url-here. (Reason: additional information here).

If that's the case, you'll need enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) for you web API. Follow the steps below to do this:

  • Go to Azure portal, and locate the web API project that you've deployed to App Service.
  • On the API blade, select CORS. Check the box Enable Access-Control-Allow-Credentials.
  • Under Allowed origins, add the URL of your published web app that will call this web API.

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute to this sample, see CONTRIBUTING.MD.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

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